


the old beelzebub bait and switch

by Kaesa



Series: Kaesa's Whumptober 2020 fics [4]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Horror, Bugs & Insects, Demonic Possession, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Horror, M/M, Poisoning, Whump, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:27:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27311875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaesa/pseuds/Kaesa
Summary: Aziraphale assumes the pain in his chest is heartburn at first, but it quickly becomes obvious that he has a terrible case of demonic possession, and soon there is nothing he can do about it but watch Beelzebub use his body to hurt Crowley.Well, almost nothing.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Kaesa's Whumptober 2020 fics [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1984711
Comments: 8
Kudos: 66
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	the old beelzebub bait and switch

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Whumptober 2020, for the prompts "Please" (get it out); "Breathe In Breathe Out"; "Into the Unknown" (possession); "Panic! At the Disco" (paranoia); "Do These Tacos Taste Funny to You?" (poisoned, drugged); "If You Thought the Head Trauma Was Bad..."; and "Now Where Did That Come From?" (ignoring an injury, wound reveal).

When the pain in Aziraphale's chest began, like a hot poker shoved against his breastbone from the inside, he assumed it was heartburn. He'd never had heartburn before, but there was probably a first time for everything, and as he'd just finished off a lovely (and very rich) roast duck supper from a local Chinese barbecue restaurant, he supposed it wasn't impossible. It was _very_ painful, though, so he did what he always did about unwanted physical afflictions, and miracled it away.

Well, he tried to. Somehow it burned _worse_. Perhaps there was a trick to miracling it away, like there was with preventing hangovers? How irritating. Aziraphale tried to remember humans did about heartburn, and had some vague recollection that they drank baking soda, or maybe baking powder? Were they the same thing? He thought they might be, and the burning was getting very bad now, so he went to the kitchen and searched through his cupboards for one or the other, and ended up eating a teaspoon of both.

He sat down in his armchair to read through the night, and to wait for the various baking substances to kick in, but the burning feeling didn't seem to be lessening. In fact, by about four in the morning, it reached eye-watering degrees of pain, and Aziraphale realized with dismay that he might have to cancel his plans with Crowley, which he hated to do.

But he knew he couldn't go anywhere with Crowley and have a pleasant time feeling like _this,_ so he called Crowley. There was no answer; Crowley was probably out gluing coins to sidewalks, or guiding nauseous drunks towards convenient doorsteps to throw up on, or preparing to slow the morning rush with signal failures. He was always so terribly conscientious about his work, even now, when he didn't even have anybody Downstairs to report to anymore.

Aziraphale smiled at the thought, and then, as if in answer, the pain grew worse, and he let out an involuntary gasp, just as the voice message machine or whatever it was picked up. "Crowley!" he began, hoping to sound chipper. "I'm so sorry, I've -- I'm -- I've got to cancel tonight, I hate to do it, but..." And then he thought about how Crowley would worry and dash over, and probably not even go to the play. "I have some... business. To attend to. I forgot to pay my tax. You know how it is," he said, and then he remembered that Crowley probably didn't, because Crowley had either invented tax fraud or liked to tell everyone he did. (Aziraphale suspected it was the latter.) "Well, I suppose you don't," he said. "A-anyway, I've, er. I've got to go, rest u-- I mean, to -- to fill out all those fiddly forms and things, it's very urgent, the tax people are very cross, and --"

And then that searing, painful spot in his chest began _ambling around,_ and Aziraphale nearly dropped the receiver.

"I've -- I've got to go," he said, quickly, and hung up just a bit too forcefully, while the pain journeyed slowly but steadily downwards. It marched into the general vicinity of his kidneys, circled for a bit, and then went up his back, and Aziraphale was almost positive this wasn't heartburn after all. It was something so much worse.

He hurried over to the kitchen again, as the pain took a meandering path up his spine and across his shoulder. It took a long detour down across his elbow, where it caused a strange and awful sensation all along his arm, before creeping back towards his chest. It was almost felt like the sensation of something creeping around on his skin, but _inside_ the skin. Hands shaking, he filled a glass with water, said a quick blessing, and chugged it.

The pain intensified so much that he yelped and collapsed on the floor. It journeyed up towards his throat, and he began to cough and gag and retch for what seemed like an eternity, until suddenly, the pain was gone -- he'd coughed the thing up, whatever it was. He spat it out into his palm.

It was a single fly. The thing was miraculously -- accursedly -- still alive, and it turned around in Aziraphale's palm for a few moments before flying away.

He had just a moment to realize how much trouble he was in before a thousand more little points of pain jabbed into him, all over his body, and began crawling around inside him.

Aziraphale hauled himself to his feet, painfully, and coughed up a few more flies, which buzzed lazily around his kitchen. He was in incredible pain, and he had to clutch the kitchen countertop to stand, at this point, so he knew he wasn't going to make it back to where the telephone was. He tried not think about Crowley, or whether he would come here, or what Hell knew. He had to do something _now._

With some difficulty, he opened up one of the drawers. It was becoming very difficult to control his fingers now; sometimes they twitched, and sometimes they lost strength, and sometimes they just froze in place and he couldn't move them at all. But he had a funnel, and what he needed now was a funnel, and he managed to paw through the drawer and draw out the funnel, after a few tries.

He coughed up a few more flies, and swatted halfheartedly at them before steeling himself up for the next part of his mission. He had no idea if this would even _help_ things, but he would be damned if he just sat around coughing up flies until whatever was happening to him wrapped up. (He coughed. Three more flies. A few more points of pain.) Over the course of several minutes, Aziraphale managed to retrieve the vinegar, drop the vinegar, re-retrieve the vinegar, and bring it over to where his glass and the funnel were. (He coughed. Seven more flies. Not good.) He carefully, painstakingly nudged the sugar bowl over as well, and then, spilling a good amount of the vinegar across the counter, as well as most of the sugar bowl, assembled what must be the most desperately-needed fly trap ever made. By this point he only had reliable control of three of his fingers, and was forced to use two of these to keep himself standing more or less upright over the counter, and everything hurt so much.

When the fly trap was done, Aziraphale allowed himself to collapse onto the floor again, and made his way painfully on hands and knees to the kitchen door. (He coughed. A great quantity of flies came out, and he gagged at the thought of them inside of him, which led to quite a few more flies.)

Aziraphale did not wish to die, certainly, but he knew, slowly but surely, that he was losing control of his own body, and also, that some other, malevolent being was surely taking his place in it. (It was not difficult to guess who that was, either. He feared more for Crowley than himself, in that respect.)

Having accepted this, he felt that if he had to stop existing, and if it had to be at such terribly short notice, he might as well have his last moments in the comfortable armchair he'd enjoyed so many books in, and so many nights having silly, drunken conversations with Crowley. So he crawled over to the chair, pausing occasionally to retch, producing copious flies from his body. Tears were streaming down his face, and his vision was hazy when he finally got to the chair. He spent the last of his strength on climbing up into it, and there he was misery personified. He heard nothing but buzzing, felt nothing but pain, and exhaled nothing but great black swarms of flies.

The last thing he knew, before the possession overtook him completely, was that some of the tears that had been rolling down his cheeks were now taking a few steps and flying away.

* * *

When Aziraphale became aware once more, he was confused, and couldn't quite remember what had happened, or where he was. He felt oddly cramped -- not physically, but in some indefinable way that he wouldn't have been able to put his finger on even if he remembered quite what having fingers felt like. In fact, none of his usual human senses seemed to be working. Had he been discorporated? No, that made no sense at all. And, as an exhausted sleeper reaches muzzily for their alarm clock, to soothe the immediate cause of their distress, Aziraphale reached out now with his angelic senses, to reassure himself that he was where he ought to be, and discovered something far more terrible than being two hours late to work, and with a jolt of panic, he _remembered._

Aziraphale was where he ought to be, all right. But _Beelzebub, Prince of Hell,_ was also where Aziraphale ought to be, and she seemed to have pushed Aziraphale into a very small corner of his own body, somewhere near the back of the head. It wasn't comfortable, and Aziraphale didn't dare make any sudden movements, because he had the impression, from aura of smugness he could feel coming from Beelzebub, that she thought he was gone and not just folded away.

Very slowly and carefully, he extended himself far enough so that he had access to his own eyes, and saw familiar bookshelves. It would have been comforting to let his gaze linger upon an old favorite book, but Beelzebub had no knowledge of Aziraphale's favorite books, and whether she knew what books _were_ was actually very questionable. She seemed to be walking around and orientating herself within the bookshop. It was an unpleasant thing, seeing without having any control over what he was seeing, or sense of movement, and Aziraphale experienced a brief moment of imagined nausea, before remembering that he couldn't feel anything physical.

Aziraphale reached for his hearing as well, but a sudden twinge of alarm from Beelzebub made him freeze. Had he been noticed?

But she turned Aziraphale's head sharply and began walking towards the entrance to the shop. Aziraphale realized someone must have come in -- and since the bookshop was very definitely _closed,_ there was only one person who was likely to be here.

Aziraphale's heart would have leapt, and then plunged, at this realization. Perhaps fortunately, it didn't do either. While Beelzebub was distracted, he regained access to his ears, just in time to hear Crowley say, "-- you all right? I got your message."

This whole experience had of course been terrible, but none of it had prepared him for the feeling of Beelzebub reaching into Aziraphale's soul rather carelessly to retrieve the memory of what sort of message he had sent or left for Crowley. "Oh, yes, I'm so sorry to have canceled on such short notice," he heard himself say. "But fortunately I've finished up early, so I needn't have canceled at all!"

_Oh no,_ Aziraphale thought, terrified and helpless to do anything for Crowley, trapped in here watching Beelzebub do whatever Beelzebub was going to do... and then he realized two very interesting things.

Beelzebub had reached for him to solve her dilemma of not knowing what Aziraphale had said. She had been present at the time, but had not perceived the message. It was possible she didn't know about the fly trap.

What was more, Beelzebub knew full well he was still in here, but didn't seem particularly worried about him. Surely she would have extinguished him if she knew he still had conscious will; he was, in theory, too dangerous to leave alive. She must have thought he was only his memories.

"It's just that you sounded very... startled? Listen, if it's tax fraud advice you need, believe me, I know all the tricks," said Crowley, cheerfully. "It's not those idiots threatening to burn down the shop again, is it?" he asked, suddenly looking very cross.

When Beelzebub reached for him next, to find out how he might typically react to this, what incident Crowley was referring to, and exactly what sort of acquaintanceship he and Crowley currently had, Aziraphale decided to supply her with something slightly more outlandish. Although at such short notice, he panicked a bit and ended up supplying her with an old daydream he'd had about Crowley romantically sweeping in and saving him from the ruffians with demonic threats, before leading him upstairs for more enjoyable pursuits.

And that was how Aziraphale's hands ended up grasping Crowley's, and how Aziraphale's mouth ended up saying, "Oh, my darling, after what you did with them I'm certain they'd _never._ "

Crowley turned an astonishing red, and sputtered before managing to say, "I'm -- I -- sorry?"

Aziraphale could _feel_ the disgust radiating from Beelzebub. That was perfectly fine; he was happy to disgust a monstrous swarm of demonic flies who was trying to kill his -- his, well... to kill Crowley. "Oh, we don't have to talk about that if you don't want to," Aziraphale heard himself say. "I know you're very sensitive."

"I am?" Crowley asked, faintly.

Beelzebub had quickly got in over her head even more than Crowley, and Aziraphale, feeling very cruel, suggested that it was Crowley's habit to go to the kitchen and brew them both a pot of tea, because Crowley was a very considerate guest. "Why don't we have a bit of tea before dinner?" Beelzebub said for him.

"All right," said Crowley, still looking very confused. He did not go anywhere.

"You know where the kitchen is," said Beelzebub, sounding a bit more like herself, and Crowley frowned.

"Is everything all right?" Crowley asked.

"Oh, perfectly. Perfectly fine. Go on," said Beelzebub. She was worried now.

"Right, yes, of course," said Crowley, sarcastically. "I'll do your whole elaborate tea ceremony, shall I?" This was Crowley's term for making tea the human way, instead of miracling it up. Crowley thought it all tasted the same somehow. It didn't.

He hadn't counted on Crowley's natural laziness sabotaging his plans, and for a moment he was worried, but then Crowley rolled his eyes -- he still had his sunglasses on, but Aziraphale knew what that little movement meant -- and said, "Fine, fine, all right. Anything you like, angel."

Aziraphale had always wondered if any perceived warmth in that nickname of Crowley's was just wishful thinking on his own part, but suddenly, Beelzebub's disgusted soul-deep recoil at Crowley's words made the affection stand out in stark contrast, and Aziraphale had to collect himself quickly to avoid trying to seize control of his own body just to smile. He hoped they would be all the time in the world for affection later, but for now he had to be quiet, and calm, and cunning.

* * *

There was something Aziraphale wasn't telling him, Crowley knew it. He'd had something unexpected happen -- and probably unwelcome. _Not feeling well,_ what utter rubbish. His first thought had been that Heaven hadn't been able to leave well enough alone, because that was Heaven's whole deal, but he seemed...

He seemed fine?

No, Crowley thought, as he headed to the kitchen to make Aziraphale his ridiculous tea.

The thing was, Aziraphale seemed entirely too fine. He'd called Crowley _my darling._ He'd said something about what _Crowley_ had done to those mob bastards, which -- well, he could perfectly remember Aziraphale's face -- smug, earnest, ridiculously proud of himself -- while he explained what he'd done with them over tea. "They'll never do that to anyone ever again! It won't even occur to them!" Aziraphale had said. Crowley hadn't the heart to point out to him that he'd committed a hideous violation of free will, but he was terribly proud of Aziraphale anyway. What on Earth had he been talking about?

_My darling_ echoed in Crowley’s mind, and he thought about the way he’d clasped Crowley’s hands and beamed at him, and, and.

Aziraphale loved him, of course; Crowley hadn't doubted that for a long time. But they'd never really discussed it, beyond Aziraphale lying badly about not liking Crowley at all. He'd certainly never called Crowley _darling._ Crowley had been thinking of asking Aziraphale back to his flat tonight, just for drinks, and maybe, _maybe_ kissing him, and here was Aziraphale acting as though --

Crowley pushed open the kitchen door, and immediately leapt back, with a noise that was _definitely not a scream_ but might have been mistaken for one, Crowley supposed.

"Is everything all right?" Aziraphale called.

"Fine! I'm fine!" said Crowley, peering into the kitchen. There were _so many flies_. Some of them were floating in the puddles of liquid on the counter, there were a great many nasty little fly corpses in the fly trap on the counter, but there were still quite a lot of them just... existing, generally, in the kitchen, where they should not be, and where, Crowley was certain, Aziraphale didn't want them. He would have miracled them away if he'd known they were here, Crowley thought. Why build a fly trap? Unless he _couldn't_ miracle them away, for some reason.

And if he couldn't miracle them away, he wasn't fine, actually. But also, if he wasn't _fine_ and he was trying to keep that from Crowley, he wouldn't have sent him to the kitchen to make tea, especially not when Aziraphale usually liked to do it himself.

Beelzebub had been here, and probably still was. Either Aziraphale was trying to communicate this to Crowley, without being obvious about it, or whoever that was out there _was not Aziraphale._

Not setting a foot in the kitchen, Crowley snapped his fingers, and two teacups and saucers appeared on a tray in his hands, filled them with hot tea. It was made just the way Crowley liked, with no effort whatsoever and probably too much sugar, and Aziraphale would complain when he had his first sip. If it really was him, anyway.

Crowley didn't know what he was going to do if it wasn't him. Hopefully he didn't have to find out.

Crowley brought the tea tray back to maybe-not-Aziraphale, who smiled brightly at him as he sat. "Oh, thank you, my dear," he said, making no comment on the tea tray Crowley had conjured out of nothing, or the fact that the cups he'd brought weren't _quite_ the same china Aziraphale had in his kitchen, because that didn't have little snakes painted around the edges. Aziraphale (???) took one of the cups and sipped at it.

"Does it need more sugar?" Crowley asked. The _Aziraphale_ answer would be "goodness, no." Aziraphale only liked one sugar, but when Crowley had conjured the tea out of the air, he'd made it _very_ sweet. On the other hand, Crowley had often gone to Hell's flickering, fishy-smelling break room for tea, only to find flies clustered around the sugar bowl and no actual sugar left. He'd never actually _seen_ Beelzebub eating a whole bowl of sugar cubes as if they were crisps, but there were rumors of paperwork coming back unpleasantly sticky after she'd reviewed it. Fly papers, they called it.

"It's fine," said Aziraphale, pleasantly, but there was a hint of annoyance beneath it. Maybe it was Aziraphale, and he was disappointed Crowley hadn’t remembered how he liked his tea, but he was trying to be kind. Or maybe he thought Crowley had made the tea wrong on purpose, and was peeved. Which Crowley had done, actually. The problems of using tea preferences as a shibboleth had not occurred to him until now, but Crowley supposed it was his fault for thinking any idea of Jephthah’s had had any merit, ever. "Actually, you know, I think you might've given me yours, my dear," he said, and he pushed the teacup over to Crowley. "What do you think?"

Crowley knew both cups of tea were exactly the same, but he didn't want to be _weird_ , because if it wasn't Aziraphale he didn't want to let on, so he took a sip of the tea, and abruptly, terrifyingly, he felt like the whole world had been swept out from under him. He was suddenly too weak to sit up, and found himself falling face first into the table. He heard something break, somewhere, and then someone pulled the chair out from under him and he went crashing to the floor.

Somebody lazily used their foot -- Aziraphale's foot, rather -- to turn him over on his back, and Somebody used Aziraphale's face to look down at him and chuckle, as if this had all been a silly mistake. "Ah, yes. That one was definitely meant for you," said Aziraphale's voice, gently, as a low, terrible buzzing noise filled the room.

Crowley turned himself into a snake, then, but he was a dizzy, disorientated snake, and not-Aziraphale caught him easily. He struck repeatedly at the hand holding him, apologizing silently to Aziraphale -- who _must_ still be there, he _must_ , mustn't he? He'd tried to warn Crowley, he _must_ be there -- and finally managed to get in a good bite, before escaping and darting under a bookshelf.

Beelzebub had played her hand, and now Crowley's only advantage was that he knew the bookshop better than she did. He just had to catch his breath, hide from Beelzebub, and find a way to exorcise a demon safely, while also personally _being_ a demon.

Simple. Easy. He could do that, definitely. He supposed he was going to have to.

Crowley made his way sluggishly (and not at all properly snakily) over to where Aziraphale kept the misprint Bibles. They weren't holy, although they looked like they ought to be, and hopefully Beelzebub would avoid him. He was glad she still apparently thought Crowley was immune to holy water, or she would've tried that, and he would've been dead.

Curled up behind the misprint Bibles, his head pounding, Crowley manifested his mobile out of the pocket he currently didn't have, and, with some difficulty, managed to use his nose to type in _how get rid of flies_ into the search bar. Aziraphale had already tried vinegar, so he scrolled past about a hundred articles there. Vodka could potentially have been a solution, if only Crowley had done this search in the kitchen, back when he'd still had opposable thumbs and plausible deniability. There were a few fun-looking toy guns, electrical devices, and so forth, which Crowley might have enjoyed using on Beelzebub if only they had any chance of killing her, but they did not, and also, he might hurt Aziraphale. He didn't have any carnivorous plants on hand, nor did he keep any in his flat. Even if he had, he didn't like his chances of escaping, or of getting back into the shop undetected afterwards. And apparently flies didn't like the cold, but then, neither did snakes, and Beelzebub at least had the protection of somebody else's warm-blooded body.

"I'm going to find you, Crowley, you miserable traitor," said Aziraphale's voice, from somewhere in the shop, and the worst part about it, other than everything, was that it sounded so _friendly_ , apart from the words. It sounded like Aziraphale was simply sharing a hard truth with Crowley, one that they would both have to accept eventually.

_You're not_ , Crowley thought fiercely to himself, as his headache got worse. Aziraphale had to be in there, or -- or he had to be _somewhere_ , anyway.

"Your little angel friend couldn't stop me taking his body. He was huddled in a chair crying at the end, I think. And he put on szuch a brave face the day of the apocalypzze" Beelzebub was coming through more clearly, and Crowley couldn't decide if that was better or worse, because at least it was more clearly not Aziraphale, but also, what if Aziraphale was gone?

No. He wasn't. He couldn't be. Crowley would drive Beelzebub out of him, and get him back. He just had to work out how. He tried looking up _beelzebub weakness_ on the internet -- the typing was painstaking, especially since his phone kept suggesting he meant _bagel_ \-- and found an awful lot of useful information, if only he had been trying to beat half a dozen video games and not one Prince of Hell.

His head ached, and so did every other part of him now, although that was probably because he'd been tensed up for several minutes, trying to move as little as possible except for typing excruciatingly slowly with his nose onto a touch screen designed for human hands.

Well. The internet didn't know Beelzebub's weaknesses… but maybe Crowley did, and they hadn't occurred to him?

He tried to gather up his thoughts, despite his terrible headache. Was there anything Beelzebub… liked?

Sugar cubes? Yes, but she wasn't a horse; she was somehow worse. Dagon's stupid jokes? But Dagon wasn't here, and she liked pushing Dagon around just as much.

What did Beelzebub _obey?_ Rules. Memos. The bureaucratic processes of Hell. Like most demons, Beelzebub didn't have much imagination. _It izz written,_ she had insisted at the airbase, but the only way she could imagine deviating from the narrative was in her belief that Hell might win the final war.

Could Crowley forge some sort of summons from Hell?

_Satan,_ his head hurt.

With difficulty, he managed to produce a sheet of paper that looked, more or less, like the stuff they got memos on in Hell. It was flimsy stuff, because Hell was cheap, and left an unpleasant powdery residue on the hands. He caused the words _REPORT TO BOLGIA #5 IMMEDIATELY, PITCH RIVER FLOODED, MALEBRANCHE ON STRIKE, PLEASE DECAPITATE THEM_ to appear on the page, and then he adjusted the kerning so that it would have induced a headache in nearly anyone.

Although perhaps Crowley was biased, given how much his head hurt just now. Fuck, what had she dosed him with?

"Crowley, you can't hide from me forever," said Aziraphale's voice, looming closer. Crowley forced the memo into the sort of envelope that _always_ sliced your finger open while you were opening it, and then caused it to appear on the ground before Beelzebub, because that was how Crowley usually found missives from Hell when he didn't have the television or the radio on; he slipped on them.

In a few moments there was a small crash as, presumably, Aziraphale's body hit the ground. Would she believe it? It was awfully convenient timing for Crowley, and inconvenient timing for Beelzebub. But then, Hell's orders _always_ came at an inconvenient time.

She swore to herself -- this was the bit where she cut her finger on the envelope -- and then, as Crowley listened silently, she swore some more. "Well, at least I got one of them," she muttered to herself, and then there was the sound of an abandoned body hitting the floor, and a loud buzzing, and the shop door bell rang as Beelzebub swarmed outside.

Crowley stayed where he was; he was tired, the miracles had really taken it out of him, and his head hurt so very much. He wondered if you could die of a headache. At least Aziraphale would find the body, although Crowley would have no way to let him know if he didn't make it through the process of getting another body because Beelzebub had killed him. And that all assumed Aziraphale was still around, anyway. So he sat, and waited, and hoped Aziraphale would come back before Beelzebub did. Or at all, ever.

"Crowley?" he heard Aziraphale ask, and a sudden, horrible thought occurred to him, that maybe it wasn't Aziraphale. Maybe Beelzebub had only _pretended_ to leave. Could Beelzebub do that? Split some of herself off from the swarm? Or were the flies not that real?

"Crowley?" Aziraphale called, sounding more distraught now. Crowley wanted to go to him, but Crowley's head was still pounding, and he was afraid, and he was tired from all the miracles he'd had to do to _maybe_ convince Beelzebub that she was needed Downstairs, so he curled up behind the misprint Bibles and postponed making a decision about how much he believed Aziraphale was himself again.

"Crowley? I'm very worried about you," said Aziraphale. "It's me again, she's gone. I'm so sorry you got wrapped up in this, but I'm going to have to ward the place against demons now, and I want to be sure I don't ward it against _you_ , so..." Aziraphale's voice drew nearer slowly, and Crowley curled in on himself until one of the books slid off the shelf and he saw Aziraphale's face looking through the slot. "Oh, there you are, my dear. Are you all right?"

He _seemed_ like himself, but... "Tell me ssomething sso I know it's you," said Crowley.

Aziraphale looked troubled. "Oh. Oh, that's a very good point. I don't know what to tell you," he sighed. "The -- the bit where she had me talk about those mafia fellows, I -- she had access to my memories, but she didn't know the rest of me was still there, she thought she'd got rid of me, so I could -- I could sneakily rearrange things, sort of. It's like when I have somebody come back a second time to try and buy something, I hide it two or three levels deep in 1980s fantasy paperbacks so they either buy one of those or are so put off by all those Xanth novels that they never come back to the shop at all! But... not quite like that, really, because even if my memories were irrelevant books they’d still be good ones." Aziraphale suddenly remembered what Crowley had asked of him, and frowned. "Oh... well, I suppose she could have told you all that too, I just... I don't know what to say, Crowley."

Crowley believed Beelzebub _could_ have said all that, but he didn't think she would; she would have lost her patience, tried to summarize it all, and bollocksed it up because she probably knew even less about 1980s fantasy novels than Crowley himself. "That'sss all right, I believe you," he said, slithering out of the shelf and wincing as he returned to his other form. "Jussst..."

Crowley was about to gripe about how badly his head hurt -- and, now that he was human again, about how badly everything _else_ hurt -- but the door to the shop opened and shut again, and Aziraphale and Crowley exchanged a look of panic, and almost as one hurried over to see who'd come in.

The panic wasn't unwarranted; it was the Archangel Michael. Crowley forced himself to stand up very straight and not look at all poisoned, and then that felt objectively wrong, because he'd never done it before, so he leaned against the wall casually. He tried to think of something extremely cool and scary to say.

Aziraphale beat him to speaking, if not to cool or scary. "What are _you_ doing here?" he snapped. "There was to be no interference."

"That's true," she acknowledged, and for some reason she seemed a little worried by Aziraphale's presence anyway. "There... there hasn't been, has there?" she asked, pretending to sound concerned. No, she _was_ concerned, Crowley realized; she was concerned that something she thought she knew was wrong.

Aziraphale huffed. "Well, as a matter of fact --"

"Angel, leave it to me, I know exactly what's happened," said Crowley, airily, hoping Michael would believe this and fuck off soon. "It's the old Beelzebub Bait and Switch, isn't it?"

"I beg your pardon?" Michael said, sharply.

"And I don't grant it," Crowley responded. Were his extremities going numb? They were. That wasn't good. Better hurry this up, then. "You came here because Beelzebub told you to, didn't she? Oh, she does this all the time with her enemies, I just bet she was excited to have a chance to do it to Heaven."

"What? Why would -- why would that have happened?" Michael asked. She was a good liar, for an angel. Crowley might have believed it.

"Because she wants us to take you out, or she wants you to take us out. Either way she wins. She told you she'd found a way to kill Aziraphale, didn't she? And that she'd weakened me and I'd be easy to take out." Michael's expression told him he was dead on, which was great, because going back to human shape had clearly accelerated whatever poison Beelzebub had dosed him with and he was having to sort of grip onto the wall to continue his casual lean. "Beelzebub does it all the time. Takess out at leasst one enemy, maybe two or three at once. No, we've been fine here, haven't we, angel?" he asked Aziraphale.

"Oh! Yes. Everything is completely fine," said Aziraphale, "and extremely normal." Crowley would have elbowed him if he could have done that without losing his balance. "In fact, I rather think you ought to leave," he said. "Now. Or else." He gave her an icy smile, as though she was a repeat customer about to try and walk out with his most prized possession.

Michael decided she'd better leave. "Right, yes, well, thank you for clearing that up," she said, quickly. "I. Yes. That. Thank you," she told Crowley, although it plainly left a bad taste in her mouth. She backed out of the shop, not turning her back on either of them, and when he was sure she was gone, Crowley collapsed.

"Crowley!" said Aziraphale, scooping him up. "What's wrong?" He carried Crowley over to the couch.

"Beelzebub -- ssomething in my tea," he said. "Wass gonna tell you, but then Michael --"

"Oh dear," said Aziraphale, putting a hand to Crowley's forehead. "This is going to be probably as unpleasant as sobering up, if not worse." And he pulled the poison out of Crowley's veins with a miracle.

For a moment Crowley's head felt like it was going to explode, and then... and then everything was fine.

Aziraphale grimaced. "Well, she certainly pulled out all the stops there. A rather potent mixture of insect poisons." He patted Crowley's cheek. "Why don't you rest up, and I'll--"

Crowley grabbed his wrist before he could walk away, and before Crowley could lose his nerve. "Wait!" he said, struggling to sit up. "Wait, Aziraphale, I -- what _did_ you replace the mafia guys memory with? What did you tell her to have her be all..."

"Ah," said Aziraphale, blushing. "I. It was. Well. You... er."

"Because it seemed like she thought _I_ saved you," Crowley said, "and I don't know why --"

"It was a ridiculous daydream I had," Aziraphale blurted, "where you swept in and saved me and, ah, and we. And we were." He wouldn't look Crowley in the eye. "Well, I, ah, I suppose that must have been very obvious. I do apologize if it made you... uncomfortable. I reached for the first thing I thought of; I wanted to be certain you knew something was wrong."

"Oh, angel," said Crowley, feeling very fond of Aziraphale. "You... before you called, I was going to -- it was going to be..." No, no, that was all wrong, that wasn't how he wanted to address this. "I know you love me," he said, and Aziraphale looked very guilty. "I don't know if you know that I love you?" Aziraphale finally looked at him, seeming rather startled by this. "And I -- before you called to cancel, I was going to see if -- if perhaps you wanted... to... to..." Oh no, he was out of nerve already. But the way Aziraphale was looking at him so _hopefully_... He got to his feet, and kissed Aziraphale, who responded very favorably, and pulled him closer.

When they drew apart, eventually, Aziraphale beamed up at him. "I do want to," he said, "very much so. Although perhaps, unfortunately, the ah, warding of the bookshop should take priority. Also getting rid of those wretched flies in the kitchen."

"Right, yeah," said Crowley, the slight disappointment of having to do that far outweighed by the euphoria of finally, _finally_ clearing that one up. "I can handle the flies, angel. Sorry we had to cancel our plans for _this_ nonsense, though."

"It's perfectly all right," said Aziraphale. "Now there's no way Michael and Beelzebub will ever trust each other, Michael's clearly still frightened of us, and if I am not mistaken, we have... new, more exciting plans for the evening?"

Crowley grinned. "Anything you like, angel."


End file.
